Vertigo 50th Anniversary

Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo celebrates its 50^th anniversary, a film which eventually was deemed a classic after having a luke warm critical reception during the time of its release and under performed at the box office.  The crux of the story was "boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy meets girl again, boy loses girl again".   Vertigo was the film that introduced the use of the dolly zoom – an in-camera effect that distorts perspective. The lead actor played by Jimmy Stewart is an early retired detective suffering from a combination of acrophobia (an extreme fear of heights) and vertigo (a false sense of rotational movement).

The girl is Hollywood starlet Kim Novak   playing a dual role of Madeleine and Judy, in this American film noir.  Novak is the femme fatale who psychologically fractures Scottie, Stewart’s character and propels him further down this spiraling mystery over his obsession of woman who looks like someone else.     

The screenplay was adapted from a French novel titled ‘From among the dead’, French director Francois Truffaut who extensively interviewed Hitchcock and written a book of the auteur-director, suggested that possibly the authors of the novel had specifically written the story for Hitchcock, in which they denied. Behind the scenes Vertigo imitates Hitchcock's own sadistic treatment of actors, directly mirroring his trademark production of fetishised cool blondes. 

As for its female star, Kim Novak saw this script as an analogue of the Hollywood star system in which she was a property.  In a subversive way Vertigo 50 years later solidifies the historical purpose of the #metoo movement,  Critics  have interpreted Vertigo variously as "a tale of male aggression and visual control; as a map of female Oedipal trajectory; as a deconstruction of the male construction of femininity and of masculinity itself; as a stripping bare of the mechanisms of directorial, Hollywood studio and colonial oppression.

Artistically, Vertigo for its time was bold and revolutionary, breaking cinematic ground as did Orsen Well's Citizen Kane.  in 2007, AFI ranked Vertigo as the ninth-greatest American movie of all time.

Action Comics Issue #1000

Jim Lee & Scott Williams

Besides Star Wars and Star Trek, One of the greatest top tier sources of fan fiction that has encompassed different mediums over the year, and has monikered the grandfather of the superhero archetype is Superman. 
April 18^th, 2018 saw the release of Action comic #1000, an extremely rare milestone accomplishment that celebrates 80 years of this beloved DC Character.  Conceived from a Canadian heritage, Superman was a comic strip, an 11 year- run Radio Serial, multiple comic book series, multiple television series, multiple animated series, a motion picture franchise, and a set of Video game titles.

Steve Rude 30s

Frank Cho 40s

 This April, variant covers representing each decade from a different artist will be featured, including a blank cover, and a Primary cover designed by Jim Lee and Scott Williams , bringing the total of 10 different covers to this issue. The issue is an anthology of short stories commemorating or celebrating the iconic hero.

Dave Gibbons 50s

Michael Allred 60s

Jim Steranko 70s

Joshua Middleton 80s

Dan Jurgens 90s

Lee Bermejo 2000s

Most of the covers are not by artists who were active in the period, but rather artists whose work feels inspired by the period, with Steve Rude tackling the Superman of the 1930s, Frank Cho covering the Superman of the '40s, and Watchmen's Dave Gibbons hitting the '50s. Madman creator and the artist behind Batman ’66 Michael Allred is attached to the 1960s. Jim Steranko trusted with the 70s who has not done a lot of work with DC but had drawn a variant for Before Watchmen: Rorschach #1.  Joshua Middleton came onto the comic book scene in the 2000’s but his most recognized Superman contribution was Superman/Shazam!: First Thunder and is in charge of the 80s.  Leaving the most likely to be the most popular artist and cover which might be the biggest seller for monetary purposes is Dan Jurgens  for the 1990’s cover, Dan is the current writer for Action comics  but was the definitive artist for Superman in the 1990s . While Lee Bermejo, who recently did an exclusive Justice League theatrical poster, will draw 

2018 marks the 40^th Anniversary of the motion picture release of Superman. Starring a then unknown actor, the late Christopher Reeve.  Director Richard Donner casted him after watching Reeve's Performance on play in New York, playing a duo role of a young man and his grandfather.  The Tagline being you will believe a man can fly.  Was significant because the status of effects prior to the Donner's film was categorically very low-end and not taken too seriously.  The motion picture revolutionized the perception of the superhero genre being box office draw and giving authenticity to a fictional character that was otherwise marginalized to little children.  Donner's contributions to the first 3 films  before studio execs and behind the scene dealings altered Richard Donners’ involvement and vision is still considered unprecedented.  The current president of Marvel Studios Kevin Feige, upon graduating from USC went to intern and then work under Richard Donner and his wife Lauren at the beginning of his career, working on the set of Volcano with Tommy Lee Jones, and You’ve Got Mail with Meg Ryan and Hanks that eventually led to Lauren Donner having Feige sit in and work with Bryan Singer to work on the first X-men Movie, which led to his own eventual path with Marvel. 

Superman 1978 were the character reveal takes place one hour into the film, something unheard of even today, took a mature approach to the material and as such elevated a b-level picture genre and  paved the way for ruling genre today. The kids who grew up enthralled and caught up with both the star wars saga and Superman franchises are the movers and shakers of the business today.  It’s a reflection of the enormous impact that these characters or franchises have had on the modern movie landscape today.
One of the contributing stories of Action comics #1000 is a  co-written piece by Richard Donner.

Planetariums

A resurgence of space and space exploration had re-entered the public consciousness largely due to the accomplishment of Tesla founder Elon Musk; the CEO of SpaceX.  And with familiar liaison to the stars Astrophysicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson who occasionally makes a public appearance to help generate interests and inform the public at large with the on-goings of space exploration and how we should view the final frontier with fresh 2018 eyes.

I had the opportunity to visit the Museum of Natural History in New York City, where the Hayden Planetarium resides; and Neil deGrasse Tyson is currently the director and curator of.

Outside Hayden Theatre

 The Planetarium displays the most accurate depiction of our galaxy, by charting our stars and giving a detail account of where we are, and what is happening for, both in and beyond our solar system, in one of the most remarkable motion picture captured simulation of space that is simply hard to rival.

The Hayden Planetarium was opened to the public in 1958 and reopened in 2000, where it remains today available to the public with daily visits.  In Ontario, The McLaughlin planetarium which opened in 1968 was the premiere source to view the stars in an immersive avenue until 1995 when it was abruptly closed due to government cut backs.  In that time a Toronto college campus – Seneca College had a planetarium which had operated for nearly thirty years and had closed shortly thereafter; re-named after Canada’s first female astronaut Roberta Bondar, in 1982,

Griffith Observatory, LA

Now there exists many other planetariums in cities across our planet, largely as part of a university or  research facility, but there are remarkable locations like in Alexandria, Egypt at the Arab Academy of Science and Technology, The Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles, famed for a slew of television and Film landmark appearances ,and in Japan Nagoya City Science Museum, Nagoya which hosts the biggest planetarium in the world. In which the public can still view the stars and take in the scope and vastness of space.

In Toronto, excluding the Ontario scienc

Museum of Natural History, NYC

e centre which is merely an Imax theatre,

The only currently operating planetarium resides in the University of Toronto Campus, a 25 seat planetarium that is open for small gatherings and periodic public openings or screenings.

There is a mobile planetarium in Ontario where a space journalist and astrophotographer take a portable dome show of the stars and planets on the road as they visit seniors and children in a journey through the cosmos.

Lost in Space 20th Anniversary

April 3^rd marked the 20th Anniversary of Lost in Space: The Movie.  Starring established television actors Matt LeBlanc of Friends, and Lacey Chabert of Party of 5, who at the time were still shooting their respective shows during the making of this movie.  Plus a headlining credible cast of William Hurt as the Patriarch of the family John Robison and a now fellow academy award winning actor Gary Oldman as the treacherous Dr. Smith.  On paper it seems this film would have been considered a bona fide hit with Akiva Goldsman co-writing the movie, who back then was considered one of the go to script doctors in Hollywood.

Blarp a poorly executed CGI Character

 In addition to writing the screenplay to Lost in Space the movie, this was Akiva’s first time listed as a producer. The technology and mastery of many special effects that are used today never existed during the making of this movie and the company had to outsource to several creative local production companies to work on its grand scale production sets and special effects to create this final product you see today. The film was shot at Shepperton Studios in Surrey, England. So Akiva and company did not have ILM (Industrial Light and Magic) or a nearby establishment that housed this level of production, to work on dailies or pre/post production set ups.  As explained on the blue-ray special features, and commentary of Lost in Space (1998).  

Lost in Space (1998), has one stunningly lesser known accomplishment, it’s the first movie of 1998 to reach #1 at the box office.  It was nicked named the Iceberg, being that the film replaced James Cameron’s Titanic at the Box Office Mountain top, which had remained number one for 15 straight weeks since December of 1997.  An accomplishment still unsurpassed to this date; and really the only record Marvel Studios can’t break and surpass.

The series is also unique in the sense it continues to move forward in chronology. The original series lasted only three seasons from 1965 – 1968, making this movie’s debut on the 30^th anniversary of the series’ final episodes. The Series took place in the year 1997, when production of the movie transpired, so in the visual sense the world of Lost in Space physically existed during 1997, on fully realized large production set.  The blue-ray special features - highlights the set design as one of the films greatest strengths.  As we move forward 20 more years on the month of the release of the motion picture to April 13^th, 2018.  We are presented to the release of a new television series featured on Netflix.  This will introduce The Robinson family and their journey to an audience of a new generation; as the story is being brought back to life 50 years later.  As we the audiences are shown the year 2048, the acclaimed time period the Netflix series claims to start, 30 years in our future. And like its predecessors when we look back at the Netflix series at the alleged year, we can then judge how far technology and effects have held up.